Benson Amps

The pedal line covers boost, fuzz, delay and preamp territory: the Germanium Boost, the Germanium Fuzz, the Stonkbox, the Delay, and collaboration pedals such as the Florist, built with Non Human Audio³.

Chris Benson and how the company started

Chris Benson came to amp building through repair work. He built his first amplifier, kept designing, and eventually had an amp he called the Monarch, which he showed to his friend Dan Phelps. From there the business grew into a company incorporated in 2012, and by 2024 Benson described a staff of 20 employees working in Portland, Oregon².

On That Pedal Show in 2024, Benson described the scale the company had reached²:

Benson is also a player, and the Delay is one of only two pedals he uses when he plays out live².

Self-biasing germanium circuits

Germanium transistors are prized for their character but are notoriously sensitive to temperature, which shifts their bias and changes how a pedal behaves. Benson Amps' answer is circuitry that corrects the bias automatically⁸.

The Germanium Boost uses a voltage controlled error correction circuit to bias a single germanium transistor, an idea Benson first tried, as a false start, while designing a temperature controlled fuzz⁸. The maker describes the result as a germanium clean boost that can use a germanium transistor without the weird artifacts players previously had to accept⁸. Benson's own product pages call the circuit servo-biased⁷, and Electronic Audio Experiments, describing the pedal in the context of its joint Halberd release, called it "a master class in elegant electronic design, containing an automatic biasing circuit that elevates even lowliest old stock transistor into a colorful gain stage"⁹.

The same thinking runs through the fuzzes. The Germanium Fuzz is a thermally biassed fuzz pedal¹⁰, and the Stonkbox carries what Guitar.com described as automatic thermal bias technology, meaning the bias of the transistors inside it is regulated automatically¹⁰.

The pedal line: preamp, fuzz, delay and collaborations

• Preamp pedal: a clean boost, overdrive and fuzz pedal in one, based on the circuit of Benson's Chimera 30 watt guitar amplifier, and described by the maker as extremely amp-like and versatile¹. Benson's own site calls it the now famous amp-in-a-box Preamp pedal, the flagship of the line⁷. See also preamp pedals.
• Germanium Fuzz: a thermally biassed fuzz pedal¹¹¹⁰.
• Stonkbox: Benson's second fuzz, thermally biased and inspired by the MK1 Tonebender fuzz from 1965, built by Gary Hurst¹⁰.
• Delay: a delay pedal built around the PT2399, a digital chip Benson called very primitive, dropped into a circuit he had originally designed for an analog delay. He reported getting 1250 milliseconds out of one chip, which he called unheard of².
• Florist: a collaboration between Benson Amps and Non Human Audio³.
• EAE x Benson Halberd + Germanium Boost: a joint release with Electronic Audio Experiments pairing the two circuits in one enclosure, with separate inputs and outputs for each pedal. The Boost output is normalled to the Halberd input by default, but the pedals can be rerouted, placed in either order, separated by other pedals, or run in parallel dual mono⁹.

Artists on tour with Benson amps

Benson's customer base grew through working players. On That Pedal Show, he described artist friends taking Benson amps out on tour with The Shins, Head and the Heart and deumus².

The Benson Delay in Chris Benson's own words

In the 2024 That Pedal Show interview, Chris Benson explained how the Delay came about and why he uses it live²¹²:

He added that he was "getting 1250 milliseconds out of one chip which is unheard of," and that the Delay is "one of two pedals I use live when I play out"².

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